Gonzalez’s “The Face and the Public” makes me wonder a lot about the possibilities and conditions of understanding and empathy, to what extent communities exist, and then of course, the idea of identityless, subjectless singularity.
Mark Hansen criticizes the concept of identity itself. For him the “raced image” is an always already corrupted medium “stripped of any positive meaning for the subjects that it would mark.” Search for a way of “conceptualizing and deploying media that does not subordinate it to preconstituted categories of identity and subjectivity,” he turns to affect as a venue through which to reach for “the rootedness of life” beyond that image and beyond “the reach of commodification.”
The bringing up of affect here strikes me a little. Many a time have I invested myself in a movie or a story emotionally, with the belief that a real understanding, empathy and connection have been formed between the fictional character and myself. Seldom do I realize how much such satisfactory sense of understanding has to do precisely with my fantasy, my maintaining the character as the other. As Gonzalez points out, “affect is not impervious to capitalism,” nor is it by any means exempt from commodification. Charging affect with the potential to lift one out of the historical and social specificity of one’s subjectivity is not just an act of romanticizing affect as atemporal, but also neglecting the central involvement of affect and commodification in the formation of subjectivity itself. I don’t see how this can go anywhere. But then sometimes I question myself for almost always criticizing an idealist vision so readily.
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